"Do you mean for the Great Push?" said Dennis, in an eager voice.
"Confound your great push!" said the General, with a faint flash of sternness in his expressive eyes. "There's too much talk knocking around about our future movements."
For the life of him Dennis could not help smiling all over his face.
"Well, I see where your heart lies," said the G.O.C. in Chief; "and Martique, who is going your way, shall give you a lift. I wish you the best of good luck, Mr. Dashwood, and I am very much obliged to you for the way you have carried out your mission."
"By Jove!" whispered Dennis, as the car started for the firing-line. "He did not deny it. There is to be a push, and I'm going to be in it!"
The guns still thundered, and the shells had never ceased to rend and pulverise the enemy position day and night. Otherwise, everything was quiet on our front. The raids had ceased, and the wind was unfavourable to any German gas attack.
"Come on, Dennis," said his brother; "there's nothing doing, and I'm fed up. Let's drop in to that sing-song for an hour. They've got an awfully good chap I'm told, who plays the piano like a blooming Paderewski."
"I'm with you," said Dennis. And they made their way into the subterranean dug-out which had so nearly proved his tomb on the night we had carried the front-line trench.
It seemed odd to plunge suddenly into an atmosphere of merriment within a few yards of the men posted at the periscopes along the sandbagged parapet. The electric lights were burning, and a blue haze of tobacco smoke obscured the air from a semicircle of listeners, sitting on packing-cases and forms round the piano on the platform, and the chorus of "Gilbert the Filbert," sung with a will, greeted them as they descended the stairs.